The nickel plated cases

This is a discussion on The nickel plated cases within the Reloading forums, part of the Defensive Ammunition & Ballistics category; The nickel plated cases such as my speer gold can they be reloaded ok without hurting my lee dies?
Sorry if stupid question new to ...

Its not the brass that scratches dies, its the trash on them like carbon fouling,and dirt. Tumbling the brass goes a long way towards keeping your dies from being scratched.

Once, a long time ago, I decided that switching to nickle plated stuff would make it easier to find in the grass for reloading. And it did. It was much easier to see.

The only problem was that the plated brass didn't last near as long because it would split. The nickle, being harder than the brass, looked good but it made it more brittle and the case life was about half of that of the brass.

I shot it all up and went back to brass. The nickle plated cases look great when they are reloaded and they are easier to find on the ground. Its a trade off really.

Nickel plated cases are no harder on dies than brass cases; both are far softer than the steel in dies, especially carbide dies. As HotGuns said, it's the dirt and carbon deposits from fired powder detritus that causes the problems.

A bigger problem than scratched dies in trying to resize cases without cleaning them first is the cases themselves get scratched creating the potential for weakening the case wall. Additionally, scratches show up more because the underlying brass is exposed.

Nickel plated cases have only three advantages over non-plated cases, two real and one popular, but basically unfounded supposition.